Thursday, April 23, 2015

Should Your Dog Be A Pothead?

Definitely not! And if he does, you should rush him to the vet, especially if he ate a lot of them.

Effects of an overdose of THC

Both the THC in the marijuana and the chocolate and caffeine in the brownies are toxic to dogs, and there are at least a couple of cases in which dogs died after eating them.

Dogs like marijuana. They will often eat the leaves, stems, and buds. They don't get high on it, but they can get sick. For a single exposure, the effects usually wear off after a few hours or a few days with no lasting harm, according to most of the articles I read. Long-term exposure to marijuana hasn't been studied in dogs, but at least one authority warned that marijuana has a cumulative effect that may very well be lethal to them.

The consensus is: Don't let your dog eat it.

But...

Should your dog be given marijuana for medical reasons?

Quite possibly, yes.

Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Miles gained improved quality of life with marijuana

The evidence so far is entirely anecdotal, as no controlled studies have yet been done, although a growing number of vets are saying that they should be.

Even in states where marijuana is legal, vets are not allowed to prescribe it. Most of the vets who favor medical marijuana for dogs don't want to be named. One of the few open advocates is Dr. Douglas Kramer, a vet in Los Angeles, who said he had sometimes been asked not to return to clinics where he had volunteered or relieved another vet. He said he had started giving pets marijuana because "I grew tired of euthanizing pets when I wasn't doing everything I could to make their lives better,"

Although you can't get a prescription for cannabis for your pet from a veterinarian,a number of products are freely available online. It's a booming business with lots of money to be made.

There are at least 85 active ingredients in marijuana, of which the best known are tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC (the one that gets you high), and cannabidiol, or CBD (which is the ingredient of most interest for medicine.). CBD can reduce pain, anxiety, and inflammation, as well as suppressing seizures for many people (and dogs) who don't respond well to conventional treatment.

It is a promising area for medical research, but even without that, many people who have given it to their pets are already convinced.